


tis but a flesh wound

by ariadneslostthread



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Combeferre & Enjolras Platonic Life Partners, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stitching, minor shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadneslostthread/pseuds/ariadneslostthread
Summary: Combeferre watched, quiet and fascinated, as Enjolras deftly passed the needle through the edges of the wound, and pulled the thread perfectly taut, then begin the next stitch.
Relationships: Combeferre & Enjolras (Les Misérables)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47
Collections: 2020 Same-Prompt Fic Challenge





	tis but a flesh wound

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2020 Same Prompt Fic Challenge

Combeferre watched, quiet and fascinated, as Enjolras deftly passed the needle through the edges of the wound, and pulled the thread perfectly taut, then begin the next stitch. 

It was a procedure Combeferre had spent many hours watching, many more perfecting performing himself on a wide selection of cadavers and yet more undertaking on patients once he was experienced enough to do so. He’d stitched up his friends, upon occasion, and he’d had stitches himself, twice. Once as a child, by a physician, which he could not recall on account of his being unconscious at the time, having come off worse in a collision with a tree. The second time by Joly, whose hands he was almost as familiar with watching execute neat sutures as he was his own. 

Enjolras had a scar on the inside of his forearm - a result of an unfortunate incident with a cart some years ago – which was visible with his shirt sleeves pushed to his elbows. Combeferre had stitched that up for him, very nervously as he had not so much experience with live patients back then as he did now.

Watching Enjolras suturing was a new and fascinating experience, and a revelation to Combeferre. 

“I didn’t know you could do that.” He said. 

Enjolras was quiet and purposeful, head bowed over Combeferre’s arm, concentrating on his task. He’d caught his hair up with a leather strip to keep it out of the way, but a few tendrils had gone rogue and curled insouciantly close to his nose. 

“Hmm?” He replied, without looking up, pausing only to push his away with wrist. “Yes, Joly taught me how to.”

Taught him well, by the looks of things. The sutures are neat, equally spaced, equally sized, marching along the gash in his arm, there are no loose sutures, none dropped. He will barely have a scar to show. This is not the work of one who had observed only, or been shown, but someone who has practiced. 

“I thought it would be a useful skill, you see.” Enjolras added, pausing to dab a piece of gauze against Combeferre’s arm where he was still bleeding and it was beginning to obscure his field. “We are lucky to have two doctors among us, who can stitch each other up, but it occurred to me that it cannot hurt to have a spare pair of hands, so to speak –“ he paused and glanced up, “Do you think you need a sub-cutaneous suture here?” 

Combeferre pulled his gaze away from Enjolras’s fingers, deft and delicate handling a needle and thread, and peered instead, dispassionately and objectively, at the oozing slice in his own arm. “No, I don’t believe so. Carry on.”

Enjolras nodded, and resumed. 

“It appears your forethought was well placed.” Combeferre said, “I would have not liked to traipse across to Joly’s, bleeding so.”

“Indeed.” Enjolras replied, half-smiling. “Though I can not claim credit for forethought, precisely. Far more opportunistic.”

“Do tell,”

Enjolras was quiet a moment, navigating the particularly deep and oozing area of the wound, and completed another two sutures. 

“I shall – if you promise not to be cross with me.”

“That rather depends on what you tell me. Go on, I will try very hard not to be cross.”

Enjolras hummed thoughtfully, as he considered how to begin. “I was with Bahorel…”

…

“I said practicing with blades was a bad idea.” Bahorel said, eyeing the gash in Enjolras’s trousers, and beyond that, the bloody gash in his leg. 

Enjolras raised an eyebrow, but didn’t take his own gaze from his leg. “As I recall, you were all for it.” 

He craned forward to better see the wound, “Upon reflection, and subsequent injury, it was, indeed, a bad idea,” he added, quite calmly. “No matter, it will heal, and trousers can be mended. I don’t think it is deep.”

“Er…” Bahorel said, eyeing the blood warily, as it began to track towards Enjolras’s knee. “That’s quite a lot of blood – and I am not squeamish, or unfamiliar with bumps and scrapes.”

“Don’t these type of things bleed to begin with? I’m sure it will-“ Enjolras transferred his weight to the injured leg, intending to step forward and straighten up from his fighting lunge. As he did a sharp ache exploded in his thigh, taking his breath away with it’s sudden force and taking his knee out with it. 

Bahorel’s strong hand caught his elbow immediately, helping him back to standing, “Steady there, chief.”

Enjolras let out a pained breath, and tested his leg, gingerly. “Oh,” He said, braced for the pain this time, but still taken aback. He could just about bear his weight onto the ball of his foot, heel lifted. 

“That…hurts, a bit.”

“A bit! Man, you’re bleeding on the floor!”

Enjolras glanced down, one hand still on Bahorel’s solid bicep for support, and saw a smear of blood near his foot, suddenly, keenly aware of a warm trickle down his calf. “Ah.” Looking back at his thigh, he appreciated for the first time how much of a gash it was, a real slice into his flesh, diagonal across his thigh. The pale of his skin and the deep scarlet of the interior of the wound contrasted starkly to give the edges of the cut vivid definition, emphasising how it gaped at the centre, and tapered at it’s ends. Blood welled up filling the valley, and trickling down towards his knee in a thick stream. But the blood didn’t gush, or pulse; the cut was not near an artery.

Nausea roiled suddenly in his belly, and he tightened his grip on Bahorel. 

“Oh ho,” Bahorel murmured, peering at his face, which felt rather hot. “I think we ought to get you looked at by one of our medic types…”

Enjolras nodded faintly, “Yes,” he murmured back, swallowing, “Yes. Perhaps you’re right.”

With one arm slung over Bahorel’s shoulders, and one of Bahorel’s around his waist - thankfully they were as similar in height as they were dissimilar in build – they made slow progress along the street.  
Focused as he was on trying not to limp too badly, it took Enjolras several moments of quiet to come back to himself enough to recognise the skew of their progress across the city. 

“Where are we going?” he asked. 

“To Combeferre,” said Bahorel in response, in a tone that implied he thought this perfectly obvious. “That is what one does with wounded Enjolrases.”

“Oh,” Enjolras stumbled to a halt, “Er…might we go to Joly instead? I…” his mind raced. He was minded of a conversation with Combeferre, quite recent, on the taking of unnecessary risks in which Combeferre had gotten rather agitated. “…Joly ought to be at his lodgings and this time, and it is closer, I think.”

Enjolras had grumbled at Combeferre in return himself, at his lecture; it seemed to Enjolras there was little difference between neglecting oneself, neglecting to sleep at a timely hour, or eat, in favour of a new hobby and the – to his mind, very necessary – risk of injury that came with weapons and covert associations. The discussion had ended with an hour or two of them quietly, but pointedly, ignoring each other, before something more pressing (of interest to them both) had distracted them from their grumbles. 

Bahorel side eyed him, evidently unconvinced. “As you wish, dear leader.”

Enjolras was cognisant that he had not fooled Bahorel; he could feel a low sort of rumble emanating from the other man, and was quite sure he was being laughed at.

…

Joly answered his door with a bright smile, shortly followed by an equally bright “Oh dear!” as if the arrival of bleeding friends was a common occurrence, easily within his stride. 

He ushered them in, and set immediately to business, gathering his bag and a swathe of bandages and gauze. 

Bahorel deposited Enjolras on the small sofa and caught Joly eyeing him.

“Yes?”

“Should I ask? Ought I worry that you are being pursued and the gendarmerie will shortly be breaking down my door?”

“I am wounded that you think me incapable of losing a tail.” Bahorel said, hand to his heart. “No, we are not…in trouble.”

Joly lowered himself to the floor the better to inspect Enjolras’s leg. “I beg you forgive my assumption. I can only blame a litany of precedents in which you’ve shown up bleeding or bruised on my doorstep.”

“You’ll note it is not me bleeding on this occasion.” Bahorel countered, eyebrow raised.

Joly raised his own, unfazed, “Indeed. Whilst I am happy to concede Enjolras is capable of getting into trouble by himself, here you are…”

Bahorel shot Enjolras an indignant look.

“Joly,” Enjolras said, softly, “We’re not in trouble. It was an accident.”

Joly quieted, in the face of Enjolras’s quiet composure, but grumbled as he bent back over his leg, peeling the edge of Enjolras’s trousers back for a better look. “Quite a gash. What did you have an accident with, a sword?”

“Yes.” Enjolras replied simply. 

Joly rocked back on his heels. “A sword….” He levelled an expectant look at Enjolras.

Enjolras sighed, “We were practicing, savate, of a sort, with swords…sabres to be precise.”

Joly blinked, and adopted a long suffering expression that suggested he had further questions but was keeping them to himself for the moment. “Well, I can see it was sharp – good news, oddly enough. A very clean cut, it will stitch up nicely.”

“Stitch?” Enjolras said, swallowing.

Joly cocked his head, catching Enjolras’s eye. “Yes, stitch, it is rather deep, Enjolras.” Joly’s eyebrows twitched in an inquisitive frown. “What’s the matter? You’ve had stitches before…”

“It is not that.” Enjolras said, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa as his leg throbbed. “I hadn’t realised it was quite so deep.”

Joly patted his good knee. “It is deep, but not so deep to have damaged muscle. It will heal in a few weeks, if you’re careful and mind yourself.” He offered Enjolras an encouraging smile. “I’m sure you can manage a quiet few weeks, stay off your feet?” He added, eyes twinkling.

Enjolras shot him a look, which only made Joly chuckle. 

“Right, well, let’s get on with it. Trousers off, please. I think you’ll be more comfortable lying down…let me get…” and Joly pottered off to source a number of pillows, whilst Enjolras, standing on one leg using Bahorel for balance, shimmied out of his trousers until he was in only his drawers, stockings, and a deep blush of shyness as he attempted to keep the worst of the blood off Joly’s upholstery. 

Evidently Joly had considered this also, and spread a linen over the sofa before Enjolras sat back down. 

“Here we are,” he laid a pillow against the arm of the sofa, and pressed Enjolras back into it. He pushed another pillow under Enjolras’s knee, so his leg was propped up, with his knee bent. 

Joly pulled a small stool up, and perched himself on it, suturing kit rolled out on a small table near Enjolras’s head. This close, the array of needles looked awfully large.

“Enjolras?” Joly’s hand on his shoulder caught his attention, “Just relax for me.”

Enjolras forced himself to lean back into the pillows, and look at the ceiling, not at the sharp implements in Joly’s hands. 

“You’ll feel a scratch, and then pressure. It might hurt a bit.”

Enjolras nodded once. 

It did hurt, but he found he was able to detach from it, in the belief the acute pain would abate once Joly had finished. After the first few, curiosity got the better of him and he craned his neck to watch Joly work. 

It was fascinating to watch, both the exquisitely focused expression on Joly’s face, and the edges of the wound begin to draw together, inch by inch. 

“I…Joly?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you be able to teach someone - someone not medically inclined - how to do that…” 

Joly looked up, surprised. “Certainly, it is simply a matter of practice,” he resumed the procedure, smiling slyly to himself. “Would this someone, say, be you?”

“Indeed.”

Joly chuckled, “I wouldn’t recommend trying to stitch yourself up, Enjolras, if that is what you are thinking. Keeping secrets from a certain other medically inclined someone?”

“No!” Enjolras exclaimed quickly, “That is not what I…I am interested, it would be a good skill to have. Considering our…proclivities.”

Joly’s chuckle took on a dark edge, “Ah, well, quite.” He bent his head to complete the final stitch, then sat up to consider his work.

“I know it won’t much matter to you, Enjolras, but, I think there’ll be barely a scar to see, once it’s all healed.” 

“Nevertheless, I thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now,” he leant forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, “I will teach you. But I need some teaching aids first.” His expression turned serious as he pressed a clean dressing over the wound, and began to wrap a bandage around Enjolras’s thigh. “And providing infection doesn’t set in.”

He levelled a look down at Enjolras, “To that end, you’re to stay here tonight. I want to know as soon as possible if you start to develop a fever.”

Enjolras was tall, and Joly was not, and it happened to be that there were very few instances in which Enjolras had to look up at Joly. Between this, and the uncommonly grave expression on his face, Enjolras felt very small, and young, and nodded meekly.

“Alright. If you’re sure I won’t be putting you out?”

Joly’s face beamed, transforming in a moment to a beatific smile. “Never,” he chuckled as he stood and gently drew a blanket over Enjolras’s trouserless legs. “Though finding a night shirt that is quite long enough might be a challenge…”

…

” I’ll admit I was quite mesmerised and mentioned what a skill it was. Joly was adamant anyone at all could learn, and he must have seen and understood my interest, because he brought me a pig’s foot the next day.”

A laugh burst from Combeferre, at the thought of the image. “Of course he did. I must say, you’re very good,”

“Ah. Well, after the pig’s foot, Joly managed to liberate an arm from the hospital pathology lab – I did not ask too closely how…” He completed the final stitch and smiled, fondly. “Bahorel also consented to my…ah…ministrations. He seems pleased with the result. I hope this…” he gestured at Combeferre’s forearm, still bared on the table between them, “Will not scar.”

Combeferre shrugged, less concerned about scarring than infection and keeping the wound clean. “An excellent job, very neat.”

Enjolras got to his feet and crossed the room to a drawer in which were kept stacks of cloth and bandages, slowly increasing in number as their stockpiles grew. 

With the same diligence he’d applied to suturing the gash, Enjolras tenderly wrapped Combeferre’s arm tightly. 

“That’s not too tight?”

Combeferre shook his head and flexed his hand carefully. Enjolras watched, a small crease of concern between his brows.

“It is sore, but I can move my hand well enough. Thank you.”

Enjolras’s shoulders dropped as he let out a breath, the only indication of a tension that had now passed. 

“You should eat something,” he said, turning to a cupboard to produce bread, and cheese. It was Combeferre’s lodging, and his cupboard, but as Enjolras was to be found here as often as his own rooms, he knew perfectly well where Combeferre might have provisions. 

“It is not so late, I can easily go out to find us a proper meal,” he offered. 

Combeferre chuckled, “Tis a flesh wound,” he said, and stood, to prove he was quite capable. “I am upto dinner at a café, if that is what you would like. If not, this is an ample supper.” He stepped close to Enjolras and let the fingers of his good hand, tangle with Enjolras’s. His injured arm, his right, more’s the pity, he held close to his chest sandwiched between them. “And, I am not cross. I would have taught you, if you’d asked.”

Enjolras ducked his head, and raked a hand through his hair to drag the tie from it. Loose it fell forward and framed his face. “It is just…we’d argued and I didn’t want you to think I’d ignored you.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Combeferre raised his good hand to brush a curtain of hair away from Enjolras face. He looked very young, with his hair too long and curling around his face. 

Enjolras nodded, “I thought I might stay,” he said, “…here, tonight.”

“I would like that.”

“In case you start bleeding again.”

“A wise precaution,”

“Or if a fever should develop,”

“One can never be too careful.”

The pink glow of Enjolras’s cheeks deepened to a red, and he inclined his head, eyes lowered. “You are humouring me.”

“Not at all, I am glad of your company.” Combeferre tilted Enjolras face to meet his with a finger crooked under his chin. “You are worried?”

“I am…duly concerned, for your person, as it is precious to me. And someone has injured it.”

“Well then, as my physician, what do you prescribe?”

Enjolras laughed at that, and met his gaze, eyes sparkling with amusement, “I am no physician. What is it Bahorel calls me? Chief? As your democratic chief, I bid you eat, and rest.” 

With their joined hands he tugged Combeferre to the sofa, and pressed him down to sit. He brushed, tender in his motions, the back of his hand across Combeferre’s forehead. 

“Rest.”


End file.
